BOLD Fellow and Mentor Present at the Council of Academic Programs in Communication Sciences & Disorders

BOLD Fellow Hannah Krimm and her faculty mentor, Melanie Schuele, Associate Professor of Hearing & Speech Sciences, presented at the Council of Academic Programs in Communication Sciences & Disorders (CAPCSD) annual meeting in San Antonio, Texas in March. Their talk, entitled “Effect of an online learning module for transcription,” discussed the online learning module they created in the BOLD program.

The project stemmed from a need to establish graduate students’ foundational knowledge of the sound structure of the English language. In their experience, students came to the course with varying levels of knowledge and experience with sound structures and speech transcription. The online training module Krimm and Schuele allowed students to gain critical knowledge and practice before the course began, so that the students began the class on a more even footing. The modules also reduced the amount of time the instructors needed to spend in lab session covering the material.

Schuele explained, “The project has enabled us to take better advantage of the face-to-face learning time we have with our graduate students. Because the graduate students began the term with the background knowledge provided by the learning module, we were able to provide more extensive practice on transcription of children with speech sound disorders. In the end then our students had better transcription skills than prior to the module.”

Krimm and Schuele received overwhelmingly positive feedback from the well-attended audience. Many of the attendees expressed interest in using the module in their own classes and hoped that the team could provide public access to the learning module.

Schuele stated that the feedback was exciting: “We were excited about the interest and the multiple ways that our colleagues at other universities thought they could use the learning module.”

In thinking about the future, Krimm and Schuele have ideas for more modules, as well as how else they could measure the effectiveness of new modules. They are also looking into how they might use similar methods in their professional development activities with speech-language pathologists.